The target, so tantalizing to Lt. Richard Fleischer, hardly seemed real. It was a Japanese fighter plane, almost begging to be shot down above the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Fleischer, who so rarely sought aerial prey during his time in New Guinea during World War II — he was happy to escort bombers and return to base to write to his beloved wife Helen — saw this as an opportunity. Along with three other pilots in his P-47 formation, Fleischer was eager to oblige this apparent death wish.

Yet the Americans were too eager to notice it was all a ruse.

Approximately one dozen Japanese Kawasaki Ki-61 aircraft — nicknamed "Tony" by the allies — had them in their sights.

"They set us up and we fell for it," said Fleischer with more than a hint of chagrin. "But we dove out — and once we got the nose (of the plane) down, nobody was going to catch us. We broke off (formation) and got some distance."

This story might have never been told had these men of the 340th Squadron, 348th Fighter Group, 5th Air Force, not been trained magnificently. Fleischer recalls he had 250 hours of air time — when other units had as few as 50 — before getting dispatched to New Guinea for combat during WWII.

"The 56th fighter group was just winding up. They were the first P-47s. They went to Europe and we thought we'd be following them in a month or so," Fleischer said. "But we hung around and got good flying."

Fleischer would put those skills to use overseas, flying 202 combat missions, most of them in his jug "Solid Citizen." He was credited with six confirmed aerial kills — qualifying him as a fighter ace — and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross among the many flying medals in his collection.

These days he sits at his St. George home near Desert Hills High School, at 94 still able to paint a vivid picture of his time in combat. And although he bemoans his occasional inability to come up with "the right words," he more than makes up for it with his memory of those long ago experiences.

Amid the gathering storm

Part of a dwindling fraternity of fighter aces remaining from WWII, Fleischer's Army Air Corps journey began in the waning months of 1941 when he was attending Bentley Business College in Boston. He was set to graduate in 1942, but understood with the war escalating in Europe and the Pacific he would likely get drafted at some point.

So if he had to go, he wanted to go in style.

A change in the rules gave him that opportunity.

It became clear to high-ranking military officials that the Americans would not have enough qualified pilots had they maintained their policy of only allowing college graduates. The rule was changed. Only two years of college was needed.

Fleischer had three.

He jumped right in.

He joined the army in September of 1941, was commissioned a second lieutenant and slowly familiarized himself with every detail of his P-47, feeling almost one with the aircraft. The P-47 achieved a reputation of ruggedness, according to the National Museum of the Air Force, able to withstand extensive damage and remain in the air.

By the end of the war, more than 15,000 P-47s — Fleischer flew the P-47D — had been produced and used in every theater of operations.

However, during training he had no idea where he was headed. He didn't find out until they reached the Panama Canal.

He was bound for the Pacific.

"We thought we were going to be there for the rest of our lives," he said.

First contact

The vast majority of Fleischer's combat missions can be referred to as "milk runs," missions that go according to plan without enemy interference. That meant escorting American bombers to targets, turning around and heading home to have a bite to eat.

This, he was happy to do.

Some days, however, an enemy target presented itself, putting the men's training into action as the cat-and-mouse tactics of aerial warfare ensued.

"Solid Citizen" slithered through the clouds one day in December of 1943 as Fleischer spotted several Japanese Val dive bombers begin their bombing run on American PT boats.

It was no kamikaze attack — the Americans had not yet been introduced to counterintuitive tactic. This enemy aircraft was making a legitimate attack on Navy's ability to wage war.

It was time for Fleischer to spring into action.

He shouted through his microphone, "Bandits at 3 o'clock low. I'm going down." He dropped the gas tanks attached to his wings and gave chase. Using the strength of his flying ship, he scorched through the air — almost too fast.

"I'd thought I'd go right by them before getting a shot, but I was able to come down at about a 20-degree angle, and came up from underneath," Fleischer said. "I got him and just kept going. Turned around, got on another one and had another (kill)."

Meanwhile the other men in the formation were enjoying similar success. Eight Japanese fighter planes were shot down into the drink.

Euphoria ensued.

"On the way home, talk about a thrill. It was like a football player scoring his first touchdown," Fleischer said. "When we came back, we flew over and did a couple victory rolls. There were a lot of reporters there. That was a great day."

Dogfights

Fleischer wants you to understand that just because he was a fighter pilot doesn't mean he battled the Japanese in dogfights every mission. These type of skirmishes — "just seconds is how long they last," he said — comprised just a small amount of his missions.

Besides, engaging in too many dogfights is not conducive to reaching old age.

Yet they sometimes erupt even when you aren't looking for trouble. On one mission, Fleischer recalled seeing a formation of Japanese fighters overhead.

"I was the last guy and I saw about a dozen or 15 of them in a very poor formation," he said. "We're not looking for a fight. They have the advantage already. I want to get out of here now and go home with the bombers.

"There was one guy and all of a sudden I can see black smoke. I said, 'he hit the full throttle. He's coming at our flight.' So we all spread out a bit."

At about 25,000 feet, Fleischer and his abruptly introduced counterpart were steaming toward each other, "banging away." Fleischer wasn't hit by enemy fire, but he could see the incoming shells, appearing as if they were "flaming golf balls."

"We were heading for a head-on (collision)," he continued. "You want him to break first. But he's coming and he's not breaking and he's shooting and I thought I was hitting him good in the engine. He went over me and I don't think his engine was running when he went over me. It was just covered in oil. This all took just seconds."

The Japanese pilot ejected, and Fleischer believed he lived to fight another day. Fleischer said he respected that man's ability to maneuver in combat.

"Our doc would always talk to us afterward," Fleischer recalled. "I was telling him, 'Doc, I got to where I couldn't swallow. I was speechless.' He said, 'that's fear. That's all right. Fear is all right. But can you handle it? A lot of guys get fear and they don't do a thing.' I thought, 'well, I can still operate.'

"There were some Japs and I'd be on their back and I'd think, he didn't do anything. I just shot him down. I think he just froze."

Back in the cockpit

Fleischer was discharged from the service as a captain and settled into civilian life. After 12 years as an auditor, he helped start up an insurance company, eventually buying his partners out before selling the company and retiring.

Dick and Helen Fleischer moved to Rockville in the early 1980s, then to St. George in 1990. Dick Fleischer lost Helen in April of 2012, about six months short of what would have been their 70th wedding anniversary.

Understandably, it put him into a bit of a funk.

Yet Fleischer spirits rose greatly, thanks to an excursion over the skies of Southern Utah. A British jet trainer had brought a plane to St. George and asked Fleischer if he wanted to be his co-pilot on a flight around the city.

Fleischer jumped at the chance, having put flying behind him after the war. Soon he was handed the controls.

"He asked me, 'What do you want to do?' I said, 'I want to do a barrel roll.' He said we need more altitude," Fleischer remembered with a laugh. "We climbed a couple more thousand feet and he said, 'OK go ahead.' So I did it just like I remembered. It rolled over and it came around."

"Later he asked if I wanted to land it. I said let's try it. I entered the patterns, then I came in and it was just a piece of cake. He said, 'you know what, you haven't lost a thing.'"

It was a shot in the arm to the widower, who also admitted age was catching up to him.

"It seemed like I needed that," he said. "I was getting dull. I couldn't seem to do anything. But I got to fly a jet."

David Cordero writes his Soldier Stories column on a periodic basis. Email him at dcordero@thespectrum.com with story ideas and suggestions on area veterans to profile. Follow him on Twitter, @spectrumcordero.